 Let's begin. Good evening, everyone. I'm going to call to order this meeting, the Capitalist City Council for this September 8th, 2022. Just so everybody knows, we have moved to hybrid style meetings, which means that some of the council members, or at least one of the council members, is here in person. The other council members will be on Zoom, and as well, members of the public will be able to participate in the meeting through Zoom. But I want to welcome all of you that are here tonight in person as we start to, I think, get back to normalcy. So with that, we'll start with Chloe, you want to make an announcement? Can you hear me? Okay. In accordance with California Senate Bill 361, this meeting is open to the public with both in-person and remote attendance possible. Council and staff are attending in-person and remotely via Zoom, and there are several ways for the public to watch and participate. Information on how to join the meeting via Zoom using the Zoom application or a landline or mobile phone, along with how to make public comment during the meeting tonight is available on our website, cityofcapitola.org, and on the published meeting agenda. The public can also livestream the meeting on our website or our YouTube channel. As always, the meeting is cablecast live on Charter Communications Cable TV, Channel 8, and is being recorded to be rebroadcast on the following Wednesday at 8 a.m. and on Saturday following the first rebroadcast at 1 p.m. on Charter Channel 71 and Comcast Channel 25, and our technician this evening is Brian. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chloe, and thank you, Brian for being our technician this evening. With that, let's have roll call. Council Member Bertrand. Council Member Brooks. Here. Council Member Brown. Present. Vice Mayor Keiser. Here. And Mayor Story. Here. Well, everybody, join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Do we have any additions or deletions to the agenda this evening? Staff has no changes to the agenda. Okay. Seeing no changes, let's move on now to presentations. The first is the introduction of the Recreation Division staff, Brenda Howard, Recreation Coordinator, Beach Lifeguard Services, Junior Guards, and Sports. Hi, Nikki. Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. I am here to introduce to you Brennan Howard, the city's new Recreation Coordinator for Beach Lifeguard Services, Junior Guards, and Sports. In this role, he will serve as the city's lifeguard captain as we work to further develop our lifeguard tower services for the next season. Brennan is a resident of Capitola who grew up surfing here and was known frequently for accompanying his grandpa, Charlie Howard, to the Corp Yard After School when Charlie worked for the city. Brennan has participated in junior guard program since the age of six, and first worked for the city in 2018 as a junior guard instructor until he was promoted to coordinator for the last two seasons. This past spring, he participated in the city's partnership with Santa Cruz Marine Safety, taking part in their academy and leadership training. Brennan is an adept waterman with experience ranging from teaching surf lessons to operating boats and skis in extremely dangerous conditions. He is passionate about service as a first responder to others in their time of need, teaching, lifesaving, and ocean safety. Brennan is excited to join the staff for the city that has shaped him into who he is today, and dedicated to developing a lifeguard program that the city and residents will have pride in. So I'd like to introduce to you Brennan Howard. Yes, welcome Brennan. Come right up. Good evening city council members and mayor. I just want to say thank you so much for this opportunity for allowing me to be here and really produce something that the city can be proud of. Well, absolutely well. On behalf of the city of Capitola is the mayor of Capitola. I want to welcome you and just say congratulations on your obtaining this position. It sounds like with your background in Capitola and your participation in the lifeguards training and the junior guards, I think you understand already the importance of the role that you're going to play and how important water safety is to our community for the residents and all the people who visit us throughout the year. So well, congratulations. We look forward to seeing you in the park and recs department. And yes, and I think you're going to have a great future here. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you, Brennan. All right. And next we have the junior guards participant recognition. You're going to lead us in that presentation, Brennan? Yes. Nikki has some things to say. Oh, Nikki, you can? Yes, Mayor. I'm going to kick us off. But I think I need to manage the screen first. So let me start this. I'm going to do the slides in a second. All right. So before I pull the slides up, I wanted to just provide a little bit of intro to the council that we are here to recognize our the junior guard participants accomplishments that happened over the summer. So this summer was particularly notable as it was the first that we were in full operation since 2019 due to the pandemic. And so as a result of that, this was the first opportunity for our junior guard participants to be recognized for their achievements for the community that they build on the beach and what they put back into the community as well. Brennan is going to walk us through exactly what a lot of these awards mean within the program. But it is very common for the individuals that we're recognizing tonight to be the staff that put back into the future. So it is very likely that if we pay close attention to these young people, we are going to see them join city staff sometime in the future. And so with that, I also want to just add a little footnote in that we're going to share a bunch of photos that were taken on the beach. And these photos were actually taken by RPM Training, which provided through the Capitola Public Safety Foundation, a very generous grant that went to scholarships for the program as well. So enjoy the photos. They are the highest quality we've had so far, so we're really excited about them. All right, so I'm going to share a screen here. Do I need a max? All right, and so for that, I'm going to turn it over to Brennan, who's going to tell us a little bit more about what all these different awards mean. All right, can you guys hear me OK? Is that good? So this year, we had a pleasure of giving out several notable awards to some exceptional people. These awards each hold their own meaning, and the bears of these awards truly embody them. And that's through the Junior Guard Program. We would like to recognize them each in their own light, and their names will be shown on the screen just for time purposes. To begin with, we have division-wide awards. They're given out to every single age group. They include a team captain, most improved, best sport, and best all around. Recipients of this award, once again, will have their names shown on the slide. So to begin with, we have the team captain. Team captain demonstrates leadership on a daily basis. They're described of having the ability to lead the group not only socially but by example. They're physical leaders as well as social leaders. They have extreme enthusiasm. And they're described as if all the instructors were to go missing, the coordinator wasn't showing up, they would be the ones running the beach. At regardless, those kids would make sure that this program was running smoothly, and with the same charismatic behavior and command that the instructors have as well. Next, we have the most improved. This goes to a junior guard who probably was struggling towards the beginning of the session, and maybe didn't feel comfortable socially or physically in what we were doing, just because we have long swims. It's large groups of kids, so they might have been struggling. And then in that, they had their hardships, and they persevered through them. They kept pushing themselves on a daily basis till they got better. And that earns them the right to most improved. Next, we have best sport. Best sport is someone that has a very, very positive attitude. They're outgoing, and even in the bleakest of moments, on the hottest of hot days, on the cold, rainy days in the morning, they're sitting there smiling. After long workouts, they sit there, and they're excited for whatever's to come next. And overall, they're just there to enjoy what's in front of them. After that, we have best all around. This goes to an individual who tries their hardest in everything. They're an adept in whatever you throw them, throughout them. They'll put the 100% forward, and they'll also bring up the people around them. This shows prowess in junior guards, not only because it's just natural skill, but it shows that they're there to help each other, and they're there to really support the people around them. From there, we have session-wide awards. So these are given out once a session. They're Iron Man, Iron Woman, and the Dory Award. These are across all divisions. So regardless of age group, you can get these awards if you earn them. But that also means that if you have to be nominated by not only one instructor, but the entire staff has to agree that this person truly deserves this award over everyone else. So to start, we have Iron Man and Iron Woman. It's very similar to Best All Around. However, it's across the whole beach. They show a physical dominance in the entire beach of working out and just being extremely fit. They push their limits in the limits of their friends and their people around them. They're often described as eating nails for breakfast, glass for lunch, and rocks for dinner. They pawn the phrase IDGT, which is I don't get tired. Regardless of what's in front of them, they're there to push themselves and see what their limits are and expand on them. The next award we have is the Dory Award. And the Dory Award goes to an individual who truly embodies who Dory was. I won't get into the history of who Dory was, but even their own trials and hardship, they put their best foot forward. Regardless of their own situation, they're putting their all towards this program to make sure that it continues and moves forward. And they put their whole body in Solana's program regardless of what is around them and what's happening. And they're devoted to the people around them. So lastly, this is our last award that we give out. And it's given out once a year. It's the junior life card of the year. This is someone that not only attended both sessions, but was supportive, reliable, charismatic, and the most well-rounded junior guard of the year. They're always eager to help and consistently put in 100% on the table. And at that, they weren't just naturally gifted in this. For this individual specifically, he always was there, always trying to help, seeing where he can improve, and showed just a very altruistic behavior. He was eager to help those around him and improve on himself as well. He wanted to find those things that were wrong so that when he came back to us next year, he was ready to instruct. And for me, that truly defines what a capital junior guard is. Is someone that knows their imperfections but is willing to work hard and limit them? And so with that, we'd like to just pause for a minute and invite any of our audience that is a Dory Award junior lifeguard of the year or Iron Man, Iron Woman to come up. Oh, we don't have a mic. Oh, it is there. All right, so I would like to, we'll have a camera here. So we're looking at that camera. Come on up, come on up. So we have here Eva. I think it's actually that camera right there. So a certificate, I think that should be checked out. A mayor's certificate for you in recognition for this achievement. It is, as we started off saying this is a recognizable achievement within this community and we really applaud the work that you do and are happy to have you here and be able to recognize that. So if we'll pause for a quick photo. I want to take their picture. Will that mean not in it? Well, I just want to add my congratulations to all the junior lifeguard participants this year and particularly to all the award winners and the Dory winners. Congratulations. Congratulations Eva. Good job. And we hope to see you back next year. OK. You're welcome. Yeah. And so to just kind of wrap up the presentation, we do have there were seven individuals in total and we will be mailing out the rest of the certificates. So and to complete this, we did want to take a minute and just recognize are the regionals efforts that we did this summer as well. So again, because of the pandemic, the regionals competition was interrupted. And this year, we were able to send 47 participants to Huntington Beach. And Brennan, if there's anything that you wanted to say about that? Yeah. So we got to compete in Huntington, which was amazing. And we have a reputation there for not only showing prowess in our work ethic and our ability to get the podium, but also socially. I heard from several people running events from USLA members to CSLSA members commenting on our ability to be the first people to show up as well as the last to leave, is that as soon as we got somewhere, we were asking, hi, I'm here. What can I do to help? Which I think is a good aspect that we have in its own. On top of that, we also showed how well we can do. And even in this town, we're known nationally and internationally for what we can put on the table in these events. With that, that concludes our presentation. We're happy to answer any questions at this time. Well, thank you very much for these presentations. I have such, I think, respect and admiration for all the Junior Lifeguard participants and all the instructors. And that I'm very proud that the City of Capitola has a program like this. And it's very important to our community. And I particularly want to acknowledge, of course, the Junior Lifeguard of the year, Sam. And I think that's a wonderful accomplishment. And also I want to acknowledge and I have particular respect for the most improved Junior Lifeguard. Because those are the ones who, even though when they started, they may have been struggling, but they showed perseverance. They showed determination and courage to keep going and to get better. And I think that's a lesson that we can all embrace on any endeavor that we may have. So congratulations to everyone. Congratulations on the wonderful program. And being back in full, I would say, just participation once again after the pandemic hiatus. And so with that, I guess I'll leave it and see if any of the council members have comments that they would like to make. Yes, Council Member Brooks. Hi, everyone. So I apologize for not being able to be there to celebrate with all of you in these much deserved awards. I just want to know what the secret is to get my eight-year-old interested in participating in Junior Guards. You just won't do it. So maybe next year she'll be out there and you might be there too. And hopefully we'll cross paths. But congratulations to all of you. And I look forward to seeing what's to come and next year and all of the greatness you bring to the beaches and so forth. So congratulations. OK, any other comments by council members? Yes, Vice Mayor Kaiser. Hi, Mayor. Yeah, I just want to reiterate what a feat, even just doing Junior Guards, is that I am in awe every time I see any of the sessions going on. And thank you, Brennan. Welcome to the team for the city. We're happy to have you. And keep the program going strong. Congratulations to everybody that got through another season in full swing. So let's keep that going. OK, well, thank you, Brennan. Thank you, Nikki, for this presentation. And once again, and thank you for all the Junior Guards and their families who came out to the council meeting tonight to participate in this recognition and award ceremony. So thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Thank you, City Council members and Mayor. Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Oh, yes. I think I. Yeah, is that council member Bertrand? Hello? Yes, I don't know if I could be heard. But yeah, we can hear you. Down the road. Go ahead, please. OK, OK. So I'm down here south of Santa Cruz in Capitola, representing our city as our Cali Convention, which is an annual convention. And one of the proudest things I had to do when we had our local meeting of the people in our area was to brag about our Junior Guards and how well they do. And it was so nice to hear the presentation today, just exemplifying our spirit and the fact that there's so many people that have stepped up and done so well. It was great to brag about the Junior Guards program I feel particularly strong about. And really, you got a personal deal with your kid. My daughter went to a few ups and downs as far as joining Junior Guards. And then for all the kids that are out there, as soon as she got into it, she had to do both sessions. This is a time when you could do two sessions. Well, there was four sessions, but you could do two in a row. So she really jumped in and did well in flags. And so to any kid that's listening, your brother or sister that just did so well, just remember, you can do just as well. And it's a great way to meet all your friends that you'll see in school and all the kids that live in your neighborhood. And I asked my daughter once, you know that kid across the street is walking up the street and said, oh, yeah, I know, I'm using the Junior Guards. So the reality of Junior Guards is great for the kids. And it just makes them feel so much at home here in Capitola and to know that we're recognized across the state as a great team. So the last thing I have to say is go Tola. Thank you for that, Council Member Bertrand, and for those suggestions. So with that, let's move on to the next item this evening, which is any additional materials for tonight's agenda. No, none were received, Mayor. OK, seeing none, we'll now move on to oral communications. This is opportunity for members of the public to address the Council on items that are not on tonight's agenda or items that are on the consent agenda. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak during this time? Seeing none, looks like we have somebody in Zoom. Yes, if anybody in Zoom would like to speak, just raise your hand in the Zoom, or you can dial star nine and speak up at the phone. You should be able to unmute yourself. Go ahead. Hi, this is Lori Hill. And I wanted to thank the Council for your support of the tribute to the Capitola Bones Festival that occurred this weekend. Thank you for your story and acting as Commissioner Story. He helps secure some funding for the music that we had in Esplanade Park. Thank you to Evette Brooks for stopping by and checking in on the visit. And just thank you for all the support regarding that event. The museum was able to bring in over $1,000 in donations on that weekend alone. And so my full report will be before the Air and Culture Commission is coming Tuesday. But I just wanted to express my thank you. Yeah, thank you. And Lori, while you're still there, just our thanks to you, because I know you did a tremendous amount of work to put that event together. And our congratulations to all the Historical Museum board members who helped put that exhibit together. So it was a wonderful remembrance. So thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to speak in oral communications? I don't see anyone. Yes. OK, seeing none, I'm going to now move on to staff and city council comments. And we'll start with staff comments. Council, Mr. Mayor, I have a pretty short update tonight. I just wanted to let everybody know that there is a flex alert on. And there has been some rolling blackouts. I understand last evening. I do not anticipate that we would lose power here. But if we did, we would terminate the meeting and reschedule the items that were remaining on the agenda for a future date. So if we suddenly lost connection, and those of you who are participating by Zoom, that would be the plan. Thank you. All right. Yeah, thank you for that heads up, Jamie. Any other staff comments? So I'll move on now to city council comments. Do council members have updates, reports to that? OK, seeing none. And council. Mayor's story. It might be tricky to see my hand in the background. Yeah, thank you for alerting me. I did not see it. So that's all right. Yeah, go ahead. If I may, I just thank you. I just wanted to say thank you to our public works department. I received a request to look at a fire hydrant that happened to be in the middle of one of our sidewalks. And it was in front of a home of where somebody who lives in a, or who is in a wheelchair that I couldn't, was just having trouble passing by. And with the great thinking and collaboration with our other local partners and the public works department jumped on it and quickly resolved the problem. And I just wanted to say thank you so much. They are so appreciative. I'm appreciative of making our sidewalks more accessible for everyone. So thanks so much. Thank you. Are there other council members? I'm just double checking now. Make sure I'm not missing any hands. Council member Bertrand. OK, I don't. We may have lost him. But let's move on, then, to the consent items for this evening. Are there any items that the council members would like to remove for further discussion? Consent items will be voted on in one vote. Seeing none, I did, I did. Mayor Story, council member Bertrand has raised. OK, do you should be able to see? Yeah, council member Bertrand, we actually can't see him on the video. I just thought my connection is really bad. That's why my video is off. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. OK, great. I just want to take note of an item on the consent item, agenda rudder, and that is the contribution of 20,000 from the school district to the program that Nikki has been working on in conjunction with the school district. And so I want to thank the trustees of the SoCal Unified School District for that contribution, just to special mention. And it's a testament to the program as a whole, which is a cooperative effort between the school district and capital. And that's why you get some money to help keep it going. Thank you. OK, so it looks like no items are being requested to be pulled from the consent agenda. I don't want to pull item A with the minutes, but I did have maybe a clarification, if you want to. And in oral communications on that item from that meeting, the very last paragraph, it says that Mayor Storey explained that council previously determined not to place a vacant home tax measure on the November 2022 ballot and that the issue was not being researched at this time. Now, I don't recall the exact word I may have used, and the video would confirm that. But I did want to clarify, and what I meant to say was that the matter was not being pursued at this time. I certainly didn't want to intimate that the city was somehow restricted from considering or looking at the measure in any fashion at all. So it's not being pursued, but the city may be continuing to look at it. So with that clarification on the minutes, I'll ask for a motion to approve. I'll move. I can second that. So I second. Yes, so there's a motion by Council Member Brown, seconded by Vice Mayor Keiser to approve this consent calendar agenda. Can we have a roll call vote? Council Member Bertrand. I agree. Thank you. Council Member Brooks. Aye. Council Member Brown. Aye. Vice Mayor Keiser. Aye. And Mayor Story. Aye. Thank you. The consent calendar passes unanimously, which will bring us to item 8A, which is a red. Mayor Story. Yes. Mayor Story, I just wanted to pipe in here and operate with throughout some closed sessions. Oh, that's OK. Oh, absolutely. I didn't see it on the agenda, but it's fine. Yeah, OK. I was just making sure I didn't skip it. So yes, please. You won't skip it at all. I won't skip it as well. Yeah. Yeah, thank you, our city attorney. Please report on closed session. Great. Thank you. So the Council had a closed session at a special meeting this afternoon at 3.30 on the item that was on the agenda and no reportable action was taken. Thank you. All right. Thank you. So which will now bring us to item 8A, which is a resolution supporting local measure K on the November 8, 2022 ballot. The recommended action is to adopt a resolution supporting local measure K, which is the Santa Cruz High School District Bond on the November 8, 2022 ballot. I wanted to see if Chris Monroe's is here. Oh, yes, he is here. So can we go ahead with a staff report? We can. I don't have too much of a staff report. This item was placed on the agenda at the request of Mayor Story last meeting. Chris Monroe's, the superintendent of Santa Cruz City High School District will be making the presentation. And the only thing I would ask is just make sure you talk into the mic so our folks on Zoom can hear you real well. I will be sharing my screen if you just want to give me a moment to get it queued up. And your camera is there. Great. Good evening. Thank you so much for having us here this evening. We appreciate the Council members considering supporting this measure. And we also want to express our gratitude to you all for your service to our community. My name is Chris Monroe. And it's been my honor to serve as superintendent for Santa Cruz City Schools for the last eight years. And here with me this evening is Sam Rollins, our Chief of Communications and Community Engagement. And he's going to actually walk us through the presentation. And I'll be here to help answer questions as we, if there are any. All right, thank you. Should I just sort of gesture to you and I want to advance the slide? Yeah, I will try to intuit it, but. All right, sounds good. So thank you to everyone on Zoom and in person for giving us this opportunity to sort of walk you through why we have put this bond on the ballot. I am the Chief of Communication and Community Engagement for Santa Cruz City Schools, which is, as you can see, a bit of a misnomer because we serve a community that goes far beyond the city of Santa Cruz. If you go to the next slide. We have students from Capitola at Soquel Harbor and Santa Cruz Highs because we are the district that serves the city of Capitola. And since we're a district of choice, we have students going to all of those high schools. And what we want our community to know as we're seeking this bond is that our school district, like every school district, is not funded specifically to build, repair, or modernize any of its facilities. This is a representation of our income and our expenditures. And our state, like most in the union, consider things like sustainability, modernizing classrooms, even plumbing, roofing, wiring, and school safety to be local decisions. We're not funded to do this. The only way that we can is to go out for facilities, bonds, and essentially ask our community if these are priorities for your high schools. And so we were incredibly grateful in 2016 to have so much community support and to pass the bonds that we put on the ballot at that time. They were the first bonds that we put on the ballot in almost 20 years, which is a bit unusual for school districts. And I'll get to more on that in just a second. And for the last five years, we have done really, it's been wonderful to see the change in our high schools across the district. We've modernized stadiums and classrooms and performance spaces and done a lot of necessary infrastructure work that we had a lot of needed repairs after 20 years of no bond revenue. And this is really significant because a growing body of research is drawing an ever more direct line between the outcomes that students see and the quality of learning spaces that they attend school in. That both teachers and students just do far better when they are in facilities that are well out kept, that are attractive, that are modern and safe. So, yeah, we always like every time we give one of these presentations to celebrate the wonderful things that have come to our high schools over the last five years. But as I said before, if you advance to the next slide, we knew when we passed our bonds in 2016 that going 20 years, which is about twice as long as school districts tend to go without bond funding, meant that we were looking at a lot more needed repairs than we were getting money to address. And so after bond A, which is our high school bond from 2016, is depleted, we will still have roughly half of the necessary repairs and modernizations still to complete, which we knew going into it because, again, we have schools that are over 100 years old and going 20 years without any repair adds up. And so we are seeking a bond this November to complete that work. And when I speak of the repairs, the necessary repairs and modernizations at these sites, this was a list of work that we put together in collaboration with our community. We held a lot of outreach meetings to decide what the priorities were. And so we do see that list as something of a contract that we made with our community. In November of 2022, we do have some unique opportunities associated with this bond that we won't just be working on modernization and repair, but we have the opportunity to dramatically increase sustainability at our high schools, as well as embark on a workforce housing project, which would be a new endeavor for us, but we think could be a huge boom to the community. So first of all, sustainability, we have been doing a lot of this work over the past few years. It's been a goal of ours, about a third of our power comes from solar currently, but with the passing of this bond, we will be able to dramatically expand that and accelerate all of our sustainability efforts. This is both in the creation of energy, but also in the efficiency of the schools themselves with heating and insulation and lighting and everything that we would be able to do. And this not only is good ecological sense, but will mean cost savings for our community for decades in the future. We also have the opportunity with a small investment from the bond to do something a little bit unique. Classroom teachers are of course the most important factor in student outcomes, but we in this greater community have unique challenges in recruiting and retaining great talent. We have great talent. It's hard to hang on to the wonderful teachers that we have with the cost of living, being so challenging. So our district is lucky in that we own land that can be developed upon on the west side of Santa Cruz and with just 5% of this bond funding as an initial investment, we would be able to create a workforce housing project that would have 80 units dedicated housing for teachers and support staff that with the initial bond investment putting us ahead of our payoff schedule of construction loans, we would be able to offer these teachers and support staff members subsidized rent so that they would be able to live better and more easily in our community. It's really important for us because we've lost almost 100 teachers since 2014 to the cost of living in this part of the world and nearly all of the job offers that we have declined come after teachers and staff members attempt to find housing in the area and realize that it is not gonna be a sustainable option for them. And then while we have students from Capitola at all of our high schools, we know that Soquel High is the closest and so we wanted to just sort of show the city council and everyone watching the prioritized list of projects that would be begun immediately where should the bond pass at Soquel High and again this list was put together in collaboration with our community. We had many rounds of input making sure that we were sort of making a good compromise between what our architects and staff members were telling us needed to happen and what our community wants and wanted to prioritize. And the last bit that we wanted to touch on is of course the fact that we are unable really to invest in our students' safety in any substantive way without bond funding. And with funding from the last bond we were able to install security cameras at our high schools for after hours and to monitor entries. We have begun rolling out the smart lock system that was only possible because of the last bond we fortified security fencing at all of our schools and so the safety aspect of course is a facilities investment and that's a part of bonds going forward. And we wanted to be upfront about the costs associated with this, of course, any resident in the city of Capitola would only be paying for one of the two bonds that we're putting on the ballot because they're only benefiting from one of the two bonds that we're putting on the ballot. And the average cost of a home owner and of course home owners and the only ones who would be paying for it is $180 per year and our superintendent very quickly pointed out that's about six pizzas. So we see that as a very good deal compared to all the things we'd be able to accomplish with it. And yeah, it's important to note that while the bond has a lifespan of 33 years that's very front loaded and the cost tapers as that time goes on. And thank you. Are there any questions? Yeah, thank you, Sam. Thank you, Chris. And are there questions from council members on the presentation? Yes, council member Brown. Thank you. First off, I love it when any kind of numbers or math are presented to me in terms of comparable to pizza. That's the language that I speak fluently. So I love that. My question is you had mentioned dedicated workforce housing. So I just want to clarify that that is specific to the teachers and the staff would only have access to that housing or is it still open to members of the public? So you mean answer it? Yeah, yeah. So that's housing dedicated to teachers and workforce. And we would seek to offer it in proportion to our certificated and classified employees. But yeah, that would, we would own the property and essentially would be able to offer below market rents to employees. That's fantastic. Great, thank you so much. Questions from other council members. Council member Petran, can you still hear us? Okay, hearing none. Yeah, I can hear you, but I didn't have a question. Oh, I did have a, what would you first expect? I was just wondering. You kind of garbled there, council member Petran. Could you repeat that? Yeah, what was the tapering feature of the bond that was mentioned? Did you hear that question? Yeah, so I'm not our finance director so I can't speak to this specific decline. But yeah, at the start of the bond's lifespan, the average cost to a homeowner in Capitola would be $180 per year. And I have been, yeah, I don't have specifics there, but in the 33 years of the bond's lifespan, costs tapered down pretty significantly. Yeah, do we have any more specifics? Just the district has opportunity to refinance the bonds at different points. And every time we have an opportunity to do that, that reduces the cost. Thank you. Okay, seeing no further questions from council members, I'll ask the other members of the public that would like to address the council on this item. Seeing none, I'm gonna bring it back. And seeing if a council member would like to make a motion to adopt a resolution supporting measure K. But before you do that, I guess I want to maybe, you know, explain why I asked for this to be put on the agenda. Soquel High School is very near and dear to my heart. I've had three daughters that went through Soquel High School. They don't currently attend there now. And so, you know, through that period, I have really come to know and learn about the importance of facility, the importance of retaining and keeping high quality teachers. And also the moving toward more sustainability in our facilities and particularly safety in the high schools. So for all those reasons, that's why I asked this to be put on the agenda. And in my capacity as the mayor of city Capitola in my personal capacity, I have endorsed both of these bond measures on behalf of the Santa Cruz City Schools. So I just wanted to speak to that. And then now I'll go to council member Brown. Thank you. I'll start, I have some comments, but I'll start by making a motion to adopt the resolution supporting local measure K. Second. Thank you. And then I just want to say briefly, this is a really exciting measure. It reminds me a lot of the library measures that we did. I want to say it was in 2016 in terms of, you know, modernization, replacement of things like aging, roof plumbing, heating. These are a lot of the things I remember us talking about when we wanted to repair and upgrade our libraries and we're trying to get the library bond passed. And we have seen what a positive impact that's had on our community. And so I'm really looking forward to seeing how this will have a positive impact on SoCal High and the other high schools within the Santa Cruz High School District that many of our Capitola students go to. So I'm really excited about that. Okay. Thank you. Well, we have a motion by council member Brown seconded by council member Brooks. Are there any council members that would like to speak to the motion? Seeing none. Chloe, I'll ask for a roll call vote. Council member Bertrand. I agree. Council member Brown. I went out of order. Aye. Council member Brooks. Aye. Vice mayor Kaiser. Aye. Mayor Story. Aye. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Chris and Sam, for being here this evening and for giving us this presentation. And the best of luck to you this coming November. Thank you so much for your support. You're welcome. Thank you. Next we'll move on to item 8B, which is the village palm tree lights proposal. And the recommended action is to consider a request from the capital village and wharf business improvement area to replace the existing bright white rope lights on the palm trees throughout the village with warm white rope lights. We have a, Steve, you're gonna. Yes, I have a short presentation here. Let me see if I can. You're gonna shed light on this item. That was a good one, Mayor Story. There we go. Yeah, it works. Hold on. Put on my camera. Something new. All right. So it's been a whole two years since we've talked about crisp lights in the village on the palm trees. Doesn't seem like it's been that long ago, but it has been. When we last talked about it, we were kind of in the middle of a pandemic and inside the table. And so we're back today. So back in 2019, 2020, the city council in the capital village and wharf business improvement area discussed the bright light rope lights that were installed in the palm trees in the village. At the council's request, the BIA formed an ad hoc committee which made some recommendations, those recommendations included switching out the rope lights for a low voltage LED lights in place of the rope lights. Unfortunately, that's about when the pandemic hit and that proposal was tabled at that time. It's quite an expensive proposal. I think it was upwards of $15,000 at that point. The BIA has now submitted a proposal to switch out the bright light rope lights with the warm lights. I think everybody was in agreement back in 2019, 2020 that the warm lights would be more appropriate for the village than the bright light. So that's the emphasis for their proposal now. We have breaking information on this that is about two hours ago. The BIA has recently learned of another type of light called a coaxial LED. I'm exactly sure what that is, but it is evidently a light that will look like the old twinkle lights we had. Is that not working? The echo's gone? Okay. Yeah, I couldn't hear you on that. Got it, thank you. The proposal to, or a new light to this we found with a coaxial LED that would emulate the LED, the low voltage LED lights without at a substantially reduced cost. So I'm gonna show you that various lights that we have and some slides. And then we will move forward and Karne Hannah from the BIA is here tonight and can talk about the coaxial LED and what we think that might be a reliable option. So just to give you a clue, the lights here on the left in this picture are the bright white lights that we see today. This is back when we did a trial with the warm low lights, warm white lights in 2020 just so you can see the difference about what we're talking about in their original proposal. This one was when we did a trial with the LED, low voltage LED lights. You can see it's the smaller lights, much more reminiscent of probably the twinkle lights. Everybody was used to in the village prior to the rope lights going in, small warm white lights. This is all we really have for a picture of the LED coaxial light option. It does appear to be an individual light. This picture is not the best, but it does appear to, it does come in a warm light color from what Karn shared with me earlier today. These lights are much more affordable on something, well, like Karn speak, but hopefully the BIA would be able to propose that we move forward with at this point. So the recommended action tonight is to consider the proposal to replace the existing rope lights with warm light, warm white rope lights or possibly LED coaxial lights. I'd be happy to answer any questions at this time. Thank you, Steve. Are there questions from council members? Yes, council member Brooks. Thank you, Mayor Storey. My question is just simply about the recommendation about how we would move forward with the org. Steve, do you have a plan of like showing us the two or what would, is that what you were saying? Yeah, I think what the, I need Karn to represent the BIA here, but I think the plan would be that they would purchase or have a trial of the LED coaxial lights installed and make sure that they're what we think they appear to be and then they could proceed with that installation without needing to come back to council if they've matched the LED or the white lights we've had in the past. Yeah, okay. Hey, Karn. Good evening. This is kind of weird. Kind of nice to be back, but kind of weird. Karn Hanna representing the BIA. Yes, sorry for the little wrinkle of being here and asking for something that we can't actually give you 100% of the details, but we just sort of got wind of this and then there was the long weekend, yada yada. So we would like to make the community happy. We would like to put up the warm lights. The twinkle lights proposed and shown in the sample there are really problematic from a maintenance standpoint and they are more expensive. They are not as durable and they're very susceptible to vandalism. They can be cut with scissors or any kind of basic little knife. They can be pulled off of the trees really easily. So we were pretty discouraged. The rope lights have lasted basically with very minimal maintenance because there was the pandemic and there were all these other questions for three years, which is a pretty long time. The twinkle lights that were shown in that sample are probably more like a two year duration with a fair amount of maintenance during that time, mainly depending on the vandalism issue. So when we heard about these new coaxial LEDs, which we don't really know exactly what they are, but the Christmas tree light pro company who has done quite a bit of work in the village and for the BIA brought that up kind of at the last minute possibility because they are more durable and they are more affordable. So we would like, we're trying to get them to quickly put up a sample tree so that we can all see it and determine it because there's a couple of things in addition to the cost of the lights. We really would like to have these up before Thanksgiving because we are the village of lights and Depot Hill is lit and it would just be kind of unfortunate if we would have like no lights at that point. So and the crew is very busy. I've talked to them frequently and they're very busy and to take on this project would be very difficult. So if we're able to put up the more affordable LED coaxial or if we don't feel those are satisfactory looking visually to put up the warm white rope lights, then the BIA would have in their budget currently money to procure the lights and pay for the installation of the lights by Christmas tree light pros, CLP. And so we feel like that would really be advantageous for the city because they wouldn't have to try and everybody be all stressed trying to see if the crew could put the lights up and that's what these guys do and then they would have a certain amount of warranty from them and so there's a lot of advantages to doing that. So however, we would like to ask if the city crew could take the current lights down because there's not the timeframe on that. From now until let's say a week or two before Thanksgiving to take down lights off of about 27 trees, I think. So that seemed like a minor ask and the savings would help us pay for it in our current budget. And I think that's it. Well, we would like to sign a contract with the Christmas tree light pros as soon as possible. So that we can get them up before Thanksgiving. So that's why we'd like a conceptual approval tonight so that we don't have to come back before the council in two weeks and have this whole conversation all over again about I like this and I like that. We think that the community is gonna be a lot happier. We think the lights are gonna be uniform. We've got a couple of strategies to make them even more durable with the connectors to the power. So I do think that hopefully that the coaxial LEDs will be satisfactory and if not, I think even the warm white rope lights will be a major improvement over what we have now. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Are there questions from council members on the proposal? Any comments? Well, I'll just, maybe see if there aren't very many other members of the public here other than, well, I do wanna acknowledge the two council candidates that are in the audience. But does any member of the public wish to address the council on this item? Mayor Story? Yes. It looks like Vice Mayor Kaiser has her hand up for a question. Oh yeah, Vice Mayor Kaiser. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation, Steve, in turn. I was curious, so if we're gonna go forward, are we going forward with the rope lights or are we going forward with the LED lights or are we gonna see these before we move forward? Sorry, I'm a little confused if we're gonna just say, go with what works best and put it up there or are we gonna see anything before we go into contract? I think the proposal is to try and move forward with the coaxial LEDs, but we would like to see them first. And if they match what we believe they will look like, give them authority to move forward with that installation. If not, if they put those up and they don't like them, we don't like them, then we go back to the rope light, warm white rope lights, in either case, we'd like to, the BI needs to get it under contract, so they'd like to try and get that approval tonight. Gotcha, yeah. Okay, thanks for clarifying, appreciate it. Okay, any other questions? Seeing none, I'll ask, well now the recommended action doesn't consider a motion. I don't think you are asking for a motion from council or? I think we are, I apologize if I didn't put a motion in there. Just as to consider a request. I think the, I think a motion would be appropriate. I think the motion would be appropriate to authorize the approval of the installation of the either alternative understanding that the intent is to test out the new coaxial LED lights and if they're satisfactory, go with them. Okay. Is there a council member that would like, okay, we have a, let's move by council member Brown. Is there a second? Second. And well, seconded by council member Brooks. Let's have a roll call vote. Council member Bertrand. I approve. Council member Brooks. Aye. Council member Brown. Aye. Vice mayor Kaiser. Aye. Mayor Story. Aye. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you to the BIA. Thank you, Karn, for moving this item forward after a long delay. And we all look forward to seeing whatever lights work out the best for the holidays. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is the Park Avenue traffic calming report. This is one, the recommended action is to provide feedback on traffic calming options for Park Avenue and to direct public work staff to conduct public outreach on the proposed alternatives. Can we have a staff report? Great. All right. Does everything look okay? It does. All right, great. Okay, thank you. Good evening, mayor and council members. Tonight we are here to present to you the results of our Park Avenue traffic calming analysis. Well, I'll start by just giving you some background. So the kind of impetus to this was back in about 2020 supporting the capital police department, the public works department completed an engineering and traffic study. The way that study worked is there were about 47 city streets within the city of Capitola that were reviewed for their 85th percentile and looking at the changes in speeds over time. And in viewing that, there was a few streets that stood out, one of them being Park Avenue that had a little bit of a higher speed than would be desired within our community. And so at the direction of council, we were asked to take a look at the options that might be available to reduce speeds along that corridor that travels east and west on the side of town. The scope of the project was to look mainly at the segments from Monterey Avenue to Coronado. But in addition, we did look at the segment from Coronado to McGregor Kennedy, and then also at the section of Park Avenue underneath Highway One. So from our existing conditions, the section of roadway was improved in 2017. What we have currently is class two bike lanes, which is the difference between the kind of the main three classes of bike lanes is class one would be a dedicated road or path for bicycles. Class two are the type that we typically see on our roads where you have a bike lane on the side of the roadway with its dedicated bike arrows there. And then in class three are the ones where we have share roads where the bicycles are allowed to share the road with the vehicles. And as part of that improvement in 2017, when we put in the sidewalks from the section of McGregor to Wesley, we added curb gutter and sidewalk on the north side of the road. And while we were doing that, we were taking into consideration speeds along Park Avenue. And what we did then was to reduce the vehicle lane with 10 and a half feet. And with working with our traffic engineers, that approach does tend to reduce average speeds of vehicles by narrowing the width. If you're on a freeway, I think your lane widths are much wider than that. So as you get narrower, it just tends to get drivers to drive a little bit slower. So we did apply what would be called a road diet from the section of Monterey to Wesley when we finished that sidewalk project in 2017, or 2019, sorry. So in looking at the full roadway section, it's about one mile in length. We looked at a handful of different options for what we could do to decrease speeds along this segment of Park Avenue. The list of those is horizontal controls, and I'll go through an example of what these are in the upcoming slides. Vertical controls, lane delineators, road diets, which we just alluded to, buffered bike lanes, speed feedback signs, and greed bike lanes. So now we'll take a look at what those all look like. So here are an example of the horizontal control options that we took a look at. In order to do this, you need a much wider section of roadway because what we're asking drivers to do is instead of driving in a straight path down the center line, we're adding kind of a meandering route. So you need a little bit more width to accommodate that. And the only section of Park Avenue that does have that right now is from Wesley to Coronado. The thing about that was that that wasn't the segment of Park Avenue that we were seeing that most increased speeds. And in reviewing this at a staff level and with our traffic engineers, we didn't determine that this was something we wanted to recommend for a few reasons. One being that if you can, it may be hard to see in the slide, but when you meander your roadway, you end up having the drivers kind of go closer and further away from the bike lane. And so you actually have decreased separation between cyclists and vehicles in those portions. And then in addition to that, it requires a little bit more attention and given that this is also the segment of Park Avenue that you have the nice clear views of the ocean, we just felt that this wasn't a good combination of factors to give the drivers. And also understanding that this wasn't the most challenging section is from a speed aspect. We're not recommending this approach to be employed along Park Avenue. Vertical controls are things that we've seen done in other portions of town. So we went along and did this on Jade Street and 42nd and this vertical controls are often referenced as speed bumps and humps and tables. The challenge with those is that those aren't typically something that we want to employ on our arterial streets. So our example, what our arterial streets are are 41st, Capitol Road, Park Avenue, Wharf Road, Bay Avenue, Cliff Drive and Capitol Ave. So those are our main arterial streets in town and adding these types of features in those is just not a recommended approach to do so given that those are the main roads that we get the most volumes and the highest levels of traffic. It just didn't sync up with the recommendations from staff and from our traffic engineers. The other feature that we have displayed here are road delineators and this was a good idea. We did consider this heavily but the problem with road delineators and you can kind of see there that cyclist on the lower right, those white pylons, they're usually plastic pylons that get added to the division between the bike lane and the vehicle lanes can serve as a good visual deterrent and separation between those two types of travel. The challenge that that then poses and we've heard this from multiple jurisdictions as well as just seeing it in our own backyards is that it makes it a huge challenge to maintain those as a debris free area for the cyclist so you can separate the car as well from the cyclist but then if you can't keep it clean and free of debris it becomes a more dangerous area for cyclists. A really good example that maybe many of us have seen is if you go on Warf Road right underneath the highway one towards the north, right on the right hand side there's a series of delineators just like this and they're almost always covered in the eucalyptus leaves and it just doesn't lend itself well to a safe riding condition for cyclists and given that Park Avenue has the same issue with lots of overhanging eucalyptus we didn't want to add this additional challenge of having to have a much larger amount of maintenance in order to keep a safe area for cyclists to be traveling. And then so now we're gonna review four additional measures that we took a look at. So a road diet was something that is something we talked about before at the beginning where we've employed along the first segment of Park Avenue. It's something that's a little simpler to do because it doesn't require a wider section of roadway. You can bring the road down to the minimum of around 11, 10 and a half, 11 feet and given the existing conditions currently this segment of Park Avenue have about 12 foot wide lane widths. So reducing those by one foot to one and a half feet should have a decrease in the overall speeds for vehicles in this area. In addition we have the width to add buffered bike lanes which would be shown there in the bottom right hand corner that picture shows how the typical bike lane is just one white stripe between that and the vehicle travel lanes. You can add depending on the width of the road you can add between the foot or two feet depending on what we have available to us and add additional separation. And so that gives cyclists a little bit more room to be free of movements with the car so you don't have any conflict with wide side view mirrors or handlebars and so you do have a little bit more separation provides a little bit more safety and also then restricts the road width to the vehicle so that also provides a little bit of a calming effect there. Green bike lanes is something that we've been doing with all of our new road projects and something that we did do at the Highway One underpass at Park Avenue as well back in 2017. And what that does is it just highlights those areas at all the intersections where there's going to be a bike lane that either starts or passes through that intersection. So the picture on the top right shows what we're planning to do with this project would be all the intersections of roadways intersecting Park Avenue. We would add these green bike boxes at the initiation of the lane so that when drivers first come onto the roadway they see it and then as they're exiting the roadway they have that dashed section of green lane just to make it aware for the drivers that that is also an area that they should be anticipating potentially having cyclists in those zones. And then the other tool that we have here on display are speed feedback signs. We do have one of those out there right now as you're exiting the Park Avenue going out of town and in reviewing this we spoke with the police department and tried to get some feedback from them and as well as the community when we were holding workshops during the sidewalk project about where they were observing some of the most challenges with increased speeds and I'll have a slide later on showing where we do recommend adding one of those. To look at what we have currently as far as existing safety features along Park Avenue we did add a crossing at the intersection of Coronado or I think it's at Coronado and Park Avenue and that does allow pedestrians it's called a mid-ball crossing because it's not protected by either signal or stop sign but it does allow for pedestrians to cross there and they can press the button there and then you'll see a series of rapid flashing beacons go off to provide additional notification to drivers that there's going to be a pedestrian crossing. Here we can see that these are the yellow high visibility crosswalks that go in concert with this because we are in a school zone here along Park Avenue and then I'll show you on our next slide we wanted to highlight some of the investigation we did at the intersection of the highway and Park Avenue. So I think in 2017 we did go through a full effort of adding a full set of green bike lanes throughout the section of roadway because of the challenge with just the turning movements of people getting onto and off of the freeway and then the narrow road width that exists along this segment of Park Avenue did get brought to the attention of council at a previous meeting that there was a challenge here at this corner that's on the left side of the screen here where the bike lane is fairly it seems fairly narrow and it overlaps with an existing storm grade in order to try to determine what was put possible here we looked at the overall lane widths and there are prescribed minimum lane widths from Caltrans whenever you're in their corridor and even though we do have a full 50 wide 50 foot wide section of roadway here we didn't have any additional space to widen the bike lanes because the travel lanes are already at their minimum and so there wasn't any opportunity to adjust what we had available. So what we did find our ability to do was to take the immediate area and just improve the riding surface for cyclists. So prior to that, and I think the reason this got brought to our attention was just the asphalt and concrete had been deteriorating over time. We looked into the opportunity to maybe move this storm drain out of this corner and around the corner but we had a conflict with some of the Caltrans equipment and so that wasn't a possibility for us and so we did as we changed out the type of storm grate that's there so it's a little bit more susceptible to narrow tires on cycling that some cyclists use so that you don't have the worry that maybe your tire is gonna get trapped and then as well our public works team was able to smooth out that section of asphalt and then repair and patch those segments of sidewalks. So we were able to bring this up too I think as best as we can get right now and so I just wanted to make sure that that was understood that that request came to council a little while back and we were able to achieve a good result here. So now I just wanna go through what our proposed improvements are. If you go through the full report that we had attached to this there were three main alternatives that were provided. Those kind of broke down those seven or eight items that we were considering and then packaged those into a few different alternatives that we thought were plausible to look at but our recommended alternative is alternative one which has a combination of these four items with a lane diet throughout the full segment of Park Avenue from Monterey to Coronado. Adding a speed feedback sign here at the exit of Washburn where a lot of students do come out from New Brighton Middle School and then adding the bike buffer in all the areas that we have enough road width in order to accommodate the full bike buffer and then the green bike striping that we spoke about on an earlier slide. So this is what our package of improvements we think we can bring the looking at the traffic analysis that decreases the road speeds or should decrease the road speeds by about two to three miles an hour. And then in the immediate areas of these speed signs they're anticipated to be a little bit lower speed as a result of people seeing those feedbacks and this particular area was of concern due to the challenge that we have when students are coming out of school. It's definitely want to see drivers abiding by the speed limits when they're in these school zones. At this point our next steps are to come to city council here tonight and get any community input from council as well as the community tonight and then move forward with going into a public outreach effort which we would anticipate being some type of zoom public meeting to maximize the amount of input that we can get from the community and then as well doing a survey we've done that on a couple of previous road projects and felt that we got good feedback from those who were maybe not able to attend the meeting but still had thoughts that they wanted to share with our team. After getting that feedback tonight and in the future outreach efforts we would then refine what we have as our existing design, complete those plans and bring them back to council for approval to take it out to bid. So our estimated problem- That last piece, I'm so sorry, you spoke a little too quickly on that last piece. Can you tell me again what kind, you did outreach already or you did not do outreach? No, so this is like the, tonight would be the first piece of the outreach. So bringing this to council for your input tonight if there is any public input that we do receive tonight we would take into consideration and then we're asking for direction to then pursue a more thorough public outreach effort while we would do a Zoom public outreach meeting and as well as a survey online. And so what our estimated project schedule would be is we would finish that public outreach component over this fall, allowing us to complete design this winter and put the project out to bid in the winter time with the hope to then have construction of the project completed in the spring of 23. And so here's our recommendations to councils to provide feedback on the traffic calming options that we've presented tonight and then direct our staff to conduct the public outreach effort on the proposed alternatives. And now I'm open for any questions from council mayor or the community. Thank you, K. Lodge for that report. I'll go to council member Brown. Thank you. I'm looking at the staff report and it's talking about the planned outreach and the Zoom meeting and the online survey. And I'm just wondering, will local residents be receiving kind of those green cards in the mail informing them that there's going to be a Zoom meeting in a survey or do they have to come to the city website and find it for themselves? Yeah, that's a good question. I did miss saying that we would like to do send out our postcards to kind of a buffered area around Park Avenue. We could extend it. I think typically we do our outreach to about a 300 foot buffer from the project area. So we would plan to do it that way if there's a larger zone that we'd like to do or if we could maybe message the school district or something like that, we'd be open to any suggestions on how to maximize the outreach effort that we go through. Okay, great. Yeah, I was just concerned that, you know, people aren't looking for an opportunity to participate and they won't know there is an opportunity to participate. So I think that those kind of mailers are great, are a great way to let people know that those opportunities are there. Thank you. In the mayor's story, I don't know if you can see him because his video's off, but Jock also has his hand raised. All right, yeah. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Yeah, yeah, because yeah, we can't see him here. But I'll go to Council Member Bertrand. Can you hear us? Yes, I can. And I appreciate the help I can get to be recognized. Thank you, Kristen. So I appreciate that you're planning outreach. I think that's great. Are you planning to reach out to the Bicycle Coalition? They come to some meetings, I think you participate in. We haven't, but that's a good recommendation. We can definitely let them know that we'll be having those meetings and then we can get any input from them at that time. Yeah, I think they'd appreciate being reached out out to on this issue and, you know, they involve themselves in many things, dealing with the RQC and bicycle issues and other plans around the county. So yeah, thanks for doing that. And generally I support this. I'm very happy, well, I was there. Great, thank you. Are there other questions from Council Members? Seeing none. Yeah, Kailash, I had a few questions and to start with, I know you mentioned lane diet, but I'm not quite sure what exactly that is and what would constitute a diet? Just making narrow roads. That's correct. So a diet would be, so you take a roadway, so currently the roadway sections along Park Avenue are about 12 feet wide. So we would reduce those lane widths down to about 10 and a half feet or 11 feet. And so that's kind of a diet. It's just the term that gets used to describe that practice. So just using striping along and to make the road narrower and that would make the bike lane wider or allow for a buffered bike lane? Both, both, yes. Okay, yeah, thank you for that. And you mentioned having the speed feedback sign and having a washburn. And my personal observation is that a lot of speeding takes place as people are going down the hill just past washburn. So I would just maybe recommend looking at that. Maybe the speed feedback would be better placed at the bottom of that hill instead of the top or if we can put them in both, that's good too. But just one observation about the road topography there. And I was wondering, is there any consideration or thought about or the ability to maybe put in a stop sign at either washburn or, I mean, imagine washburn would be the most suitable place for it, but. So we looked at that when the sidewalk project was first being built, because at the time I think we were anticipating potentially that the rail trail would be sooner and we wanted to have a crossing there. Working with our traffic consultants, that wasn't the recommended approach. I think they would have to do a warrant analysis to do that, but I think at the time we had already looked at that pretty heavily and it didn't play out to be an option that they recommended for us to look at. But I anticipate that being something that does get brought up during our public outreach and so we can make sure that we address that when that comes out. Okay, so that's not necessarily off the table, but not at this point considered the most ideal. We do have a new crosswalk since the sidewalk has been put in near that vicinity. Is there a possibility of, I mean, in the vein of narrowing the lanes putting in curb outs around where the sidewalk is? At that particular one or just as a general approach? Well, I mean, I was thinking of that one in particular because it's a new crossing there and it doesn't have a flashing signal at that location. The one that crosses park, it does have a flashing signal. Oh, it does at the upper, the new one. I know the one down in Coronado does, but. Right. Yeah, okay. I think, oh, maybe we're talking about the same one or is there a second one that you're referencing? Maybe I'm- Well, I thought I observed when we put in the sidewalk we put in a crosswalk either at Washburn or Wesley. Am I mistaken about that, Steve? No, you're right. That's the one I tried to highlight here. Cabrillo? Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's Cabrillo, you're right. Oh, Cabrillo, okay. You got it. Cabrillo has a flashing light, rapid flashing beacon with it. Okay. I'll just answer the real question about putting bulb outs there, that's where the bike lanes are. So then you have to, you run out of room. Right, you have to navigate around it. Okay. And then just on the outreach, yeah, I think that if we could have an expanded notice, but will there still maybe plan on being a location on our website so that somebody, if they wanted to make a recommendation, they could just go on the website. And even if they didn't get a notice, but if they're aware of it, they could give input at the website. Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, I think that's how we tried to do it last time. So we had as an event on the front page of the website, also tried to push it out through social media and then have it as a available link for, I think we could do it for a month or so and just have the online survey available so that community members, and we can keep that active on the website for that duration of time until we've kind of felt like we've consolidated all our feedback. And with those, you can actually see how your surveys are coming in. So you can see if we've gotten a good peak of surveys and then if it starts tapering off and make sure that it's still staying front and center and if we cease to have any additional surveys provided then you kind of know that we've kind of maybe reached the end of the input that we're gonna get. Great, okay, thank you. I see Council Member Brooks, you still have your hand up? Thank you. I do, just a quick question. Kayla, she mentioned something about Park and Kennedy and McGregor all the way on the other, all the way on the other end. And if I recall, I talked about like making that more safe and to cross and was that part of any of these plans here or have you, you know, like it'd be nice to have a crosswalk on one of those corners but it doesn't connect to some of the, I know there was something going on with that, but I thought that'd be pretty good. Yeah, so that wasn't part of this review but we are looking at that for the Kennedy Sidewalk Project where we would be extending sidewalk. It's a future project that we'll be bringing to Council that's been funded and that'll, that does address that intersection there. So that would be rolled into that project. At this time, we weren't looking at it for as a component of this Park Avenue traffic calming study. Okay, yeah, I didn't think we funded that Sidewalk Project on that side of it. So I'm just wondering if there were, you know, if we're striping or doing anything with this particular project, if that could be something we added on. So we received some RTC grant funding on that. So that, we requested that to the RTC and then we did receive that grant funding. So that would be that projects funded through that grant. Excellent. That's all good news. Thank you. Vice Mayor Keiser. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Kailash. I saw the green striping for sort of just at the intersections of the bike lane on park. And so I don't know if this is even anything that is done but would it be possible to do the entire bike lane greens? And we do get a lot of debris and I feel like that would make it more visible when it is covered by the eucalyptus and stuff or that just, I don't know, it may not be like an aesthetically pleasing thing either. So just wondering just to make it like as obvious as possible. Yes. So I think with that, the kind of industry, kind of the approach that everyone's doing is to do it the way we're promoting it. Surprisingly that green paint is very, very expensive. So if we were to, if we were to stripe the entire, one of those lanes entirely green, I think that would be the same as the cost for the full roadway to be restriped. And so, I think it does come into more of like a funding limitation. It's not that you can't do that, but it would, it's something we could evaluate as far as a cost approach, but I think it would probably put us beyond the allocation that we were given by council to complete this project. Okay, makes sense. Thank you. Okay, seeing no more questions from council members, I'll just ask if there's any members of the public that would like to address the council on this item. Yes, please come up. I was curious. You said that the road delineators would trap debris and leaves in the bike lane potentially. If there might be some kind of alternative to the posts that would create that kind of debris, like something that could provide physical feedback to drivers to have a more protected bike lane. I'm thinking something similar to those little bright yellow bumps or other larger bumps. I just know me personally, I would feel a lot more comfortable riding a bike if there was, in addition to a buffered bike lane, some sort of physical feedback to make sure drivers don't, just where it been to the bike lane. I think that's something that we could take into consideration. I think our limitation is just something that would still allow our sweeper to clear those areas. So that's something we can look at as far as maybe small, like you're kind of alluding to something small that would be more along the height of the lights and the bumps that oftentimes you'll see on other roadways. So I think we can include that as part of our review when we do our outreach component. Thank you. Would you like to mention your name for the record? My name is Alexander Peterson. Thank you, Alexander. Thank you. Kailash, can you, Mayor Soran, so sorry, it was going in and out. I don't know if that was just me. Oh, okay, I see nods of heads from the other council members. Can we repeat the comment or maybe if Kailash, you wanna just tell us what the speaker said? Yeah, he was just asking if there were any other types of physical just I guess notifications or separators for vehicles to be added to the bike lane. Maybe that's not quite as large as the larger delineators, but small enough that would still notify vehicles that they're straying outside of the bike lane or outside of the vehicle lane, but would still accommodate the ability for us to maintain a clear path of travel for the cyclists. And I think that's something we could have as part of our review during the public outreach. Could bots dots serve that purpose? I mean, I'm not sure. I think we'll have to look at what's allowed and what's recommended. And I think it's worth investigating and that. Sure, okay. I think in general bots dots are a recommended treatment between a bike lane and a car lane because if your bike going over them can be a little bit dicey. But I know on highway one, they have some haptic feedback strips that are used between bike lanes and traffic. And so that's the same kind of idea, but also not necessarily gonna take out a bike if it's a little bit wet or something. Got it, okay. Thank you. Let's see. So no other members of the public in the audience is there anyone on Zoom that would like to speak on this item? Janet, if you can unmute yourself. I'm unmuted. Great, go right ahead. Hi, my name is Janet Edwards. And both of my sons attended New Brighton School and the traffic in that area is very heavy at the end of school. And if you're doing a public outreach, I would suggest that you get something in the school's newsletter so that the parents of all those students can have some input as to what they see happening when the kids get out of school. Great, thank you. We will do that. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Ms. Edwards. Which I also, I mean, I think it would be nice to ask the students. Many of them are riding their bikes using Park Avenue. And so if we could get their participation, I think that that could be very helpful. Any other Zoom attendees? No, thank you. Well, seeing none, I'm going to bring it back to council for further deliberation. And I think that this is just a matter of providing more feedback. I have a feeling maybe that we did that already. I'll just ask if council members have anything further they would like to present on this. I believe Council Member Petrand has his hand raised. Yeah, okay. Council Member Petrand, go ahead. Yeah, thank you very much. I was waiting for Kristin to point it out, but okay, not this time. Anyway, just got to have some fun here. You know, this has been a longstanding issue. I think when I first came to Capitola, there was actually little committees around Capitola and there was one in this area that pointed out that Park Avenue is quite dangerous. People would be looking at their views and wandering around and hitting people and having accidents. So, you know, it's gotten better over the years because we've done things. So I'm very happy that Public Works and staff, K.L.A.S. thanks for the presentation have put so much effort into this. I appreciate the options. I think you did some detailed engineering to try to figure out which was something that would work best within the confines of Park Avenue and the conditions presented by this, I mean, the data presented by this speed study, which I looked at. No, I just, I'm very happy you did this and I definitely like option one. I'm particularly happy with the project of K.L.A.S. I think that will provide a lot of comfort for this particular quarter. So thank you very much for the effort. All right, thank you, Council Member Bertrand. Any other council members have comments? Well, let me just say thank you for that presentation for your recommendations. I know this is an important, significant project for the city. I think we all look forward to the public outreach and being able to participate. And I would certainly encourage all the residents of Capitola to participate and help us make this a safer community. All right, thank you, K.L.A.S. The next item is item 8D, which is consider an amendment, strike that, consider an ordinance amending Capitola municipal code section 2.04.275 as recommended by the Finance Advisory Committee. The recommended action is to consider the Finance Advisory Committee's recommendation to adjust council member compensation and approve the first reading of an ordinance amending Capitola municipal code section 2.04.275, pertaining to city council member salary to provide an adjusted salary of $660 per month for the members of the city council to be effective upon the start of the new terms of office following the November 2022 general municipal election. And Jim, do you wanna lead us in this presentation? Yes, thank you, Mayor Story. Good evening, council. And I'm gonna agree with Karen. It's good to be back, but this does feel a little weird. Yeah. So as you just, I hope it's not me. Oh, he's just like, one more click. There you go. Okay, just to provide a little bit of background, in September of 2019, city council adopted ordinance 1032, which amended the code section the mayor just referred to 2.04.275, adjusting council member salaries to 600 per month. Adjusted salaries became effective following the November 2020 election. This past year, past spring when we were going through our 2022-23 budget hearing city council requested that the finance advisory committee do a follow-up review to council member compensation. And that review was done by the fact of finance advisory committee on July 19th meeting. I just wanna point out that the only other commissioners or elected officials that we have at the city that get compensated are planning commissioners and their last adjustment to compensation really was in 2009 was kind of a reduction because they went from 250 a month to 125 a meeting and they generally only do one meeting a month now. And prior to that, it had I believe it was $17.50 a meeting, $17.50 a meeting from 1967 until November of 2000. So they've only had a couple of adjustments. I just wanna point that out as I go to this next slide to kind of give a history of the city councils. So this next slide just kind of shows the increases when it was first, when council first received compensation for being on the council was in February of 66. And since then we've only done a handful of adjustments to that compensation, generally about anywhere from 11 to 14 years apart. So that was something that we were kind of looking at in 2020 is how do we get this on a more regular schedule? The California government code section does allow for code section 36516 allows for increases of up to 5% a year for every year since the last adjustment. However, any increase again doesn't go into effect until after the next election. So we could look at it on an annual basis but it would actually only change every other year. Again, the last increase was in December of 2020 and that was an increase from 500 to 600 per month. And at that point the maximum was 990 that we could have gone to. Now, 600 becomes our base. So 5% a year for the last two years, our maximum is 660 and it could go into effect December of this year. Is anyone else still losing sound from within chamber? Yeah, it's cutting out quite a bit. Sorry, I was trying to balance between the echo and have you actually hear me. We did look at mayor and city council member salaries and compared them to cities, the same cities that 11 cities that we use for our last employee compensation study. And you can see we looked at what our rates are in that first column and then the average in the median. We're somewhat in the ballpark on council and we have the same salary for the mayor. I'm not sure if as a general law city we can do anything different than that. I'd have to look into that. And then population, overall revenues, and then per capita. So again, that was the 11 kind of central coast cities that we generally look at for employee compensation studies. So this was presented to the finance advisory committee and that slide header should say fact recommendation. And the fact has recommended an increase to council member salaries of 5% per year. So it'd be an increase to 660 per month. And then we're asking to approve the first reading of an ordinance amending capital and municipal code section 2.04275. We did have a brief discussion regarding, including benefits and at this time the recommendation did not include additional benefits but that's something we could do each time we review it is review that as well. And the fact also recommends doing a review as we go through our budget process with the potential to do adjustments every two years. And I think the thought process there was to kind of just stay a little bit more up with cost of living adjustments and inflation rather than wait until once every decade or decade and a half or so. Fiscal impact going to 660 per month is about 3,800 a year. It would start this year, it'd be about half that for this fiscal year and then become 3,800 a year. And I will also add that Mayor Story and Vice Mayor Kaiser serve on the finance advisory committee and they abstain from voting on the recommendation and can take part in this discussion. That concludes my presentation and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Council Member Bertrand, did you have any questions? And I don't see any hands up from the council members, other council members on Zoom. So at this time I will ask if any members of the public wish to address the council on this item. Good evening again, Karen Hanna. I was on the council when it was $150 a month so go council. I just feel like I have to say that kind of almost making this an automatic conversation every two years and then almost being kind of an automatic increase every two years, pretty soon you're gonna talk about some serious money. So I just, I'm not sure the workload is really increasing all that rapidly and that maybe not making it feel like it's going to be an automatic thing would be more appropriate. But on the other hand, it's not a lot of money in the budget but maybe every two years is a little much. Thank you. Thank you. Any other members of the public in the audience saying none, do we have any Zoom participants? No one with their hand up. Okay. With that I'll bring it back for further council deliberation and we do need a motion on this item since it's an amendment to an ordinance. And also just to clarify this particular motion and or the ordinance amendment only pretends to the one time adjustment to $660 a month. There's no automatic two year reviews or anything else built into these actions tonight. So with that I'll see council member Brooks with her hands up. Thank you, Mayor Story. I have a question about that adjustment and annual review. I don't know and maybe this is a question for our city attorney about whether there's anything that prohibits us from actually doing that. Sure, I can answer that. Thank you. And the answer is yes, with that we actually do not allow the council to enact an automatic increase for future years. Unlike for instance an MOU that governs employees you can have like a four year MOU that promises increases over four years. Council members cannot do that. The only way that council members can enact increases is the way that you're doing right now. You have to do it by ordinance which actually requires two reading. And so it's actually a pretty involved process and also the amount by which you can increase is governed by statute. It depends on the size of your community of your city. And so the procedure is governed and the amount but actually it cannot be automatic. My understanding of the staff recommendation is actually that you consider it each year or each two years. And the reason I think and I'm happy to be correcting if I'm wrong on this but my understanding is the reasons for that recommendation is in part due governance I see other cities have their councils consider or the council decides to consider this every year. So you can decide whether or not take the increase and it is because the increase is so minor. It's a way to just make sure it's on council's radar each year. Okay, great. Thank you. I'd be interested in getting just a little bit more feedback maybe from staff on the annual. So you're saying annual is common versus the every two years to stay in staff in alignment with the election cycle. And maybe this is some research that was done by staff and Samantha, that's what I'm hearing you say as well. It's not necessarily annually just periodically. So it's two years, three years, whatever the council decides but periodically is good because otherwise you could go 10, 15 years without considering it. And then it just becomes more difficult. Okay, thank you. Mayor Story, I'm prepared to make a motion to move forward with the finance advisory committee to increase council member salaries of 5% per year to 660 per month and improve the first reading of ordinance amending capital and municipal codes section 2.04.275 and to review the council member's salary every two years. Well, I'll second that and I have a comment. Okay, I just wanted to clarify the motion that goes beyond what the staff recommended action is. Is that? So did she want to go that far? Just wanted to make sure that council member Brooks brings the recommendation up again. Oh, there it is. So I'm just reading the first paragraph, Mayor Story. I don't think I need to include the benefits in my motion because I don't think it's necessary and we didn't have it before. And I don't need to read the impact financially. I was just reading that we would move forward with the finance subcommittee's recommendations and to review salaries every two years. Do I have that? I think that was the additional part. So was that okay? Can you do something? Am I missing something? Yeah, the part about potential adjustments every two years is not within the recommended staff action. It's only the first paragraph. Right, and so I just added that because it says as an option, annual review during budget hearings, potential adjustments every two years. So my motion is that council would review council's salary and come back every two years. Okay. Can I make a friendly amendment? Sure. Can we admit that the finance committee would review council salary every two years? Yeah, whatever a process is, I suppose I could be better, yeah. Okay, the seconder agrees with that. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. I just got a comment. Yes, go ahead council member Bertrand. I just thank the caller who got on the line and I agree with the caller sentiment. It seems like we're constrained as Sam or city attorney dictated to us, but I agree with the general consent that, I mean, the general idea that shouldn't be just increasing it every two years. Certainly our history is indicated otherwise, so, but I do support this. So I agree to this, the amendment. You accidentally muted yourself, council member Bertrand. No, I think it's talking. Oh, council member Brown could just a quick follow up and with the finance advisor committee, they just do a recommendation. They don't really deliberate, but to follow the same process, right? Is that what you were in? Okay, great. Yes, the same as what we're seeing right now is that it goes to the finance committee, they consider potential adjustments to our salary every two years. They make the recommendation, yeah. They would review it and recommend if they think that it should be adjusted or not, yeah. Okay, any further comments on the motion? Seeing none, I'll ask for a roll call vote. Council member Bertrand. I agree. Council member Brooks. I'm. Council member Brown. I. Vice mayor Keiser. I. Mayor Story. I, the motion passes unanimously, which will bring us to item nine, which is adjournment. I will adjourn this meeting of the Capitol City Council and to the next regular scheduled meeting on September 22nd at seven PM. Thank you everyone. Thank you staff. And thank you everybody out there in the zoom world for participating in this council meeting. Okay. Good night everyone. Goodbye. I don't know how to make it not do that.